Pages

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Uses for Sea Shells

While serious sea shell collectors prefer to display the objects of their passion in cases, on shelves or by some other means of exhibition, not everyone shares the same desire for displaying shells. A quick trip to one of your local mega-hobby stores will bear this out. On a recent foray to Hobby Lobby for something or other I walked down a nautical themed aisle filled with any number of knick-knacks, including bags of shells. The idea is for the purchaser to use them as accents in various craft-oriented projects such as filling glass jars or faux fishing nets as accents to the decor of a home.
Normally shells found in such a way are of an abundant quantity and thus extremely common and really serve very little purpose to the ardent collector.

But crafters have a flair for presentation with such shells, using them to create a table centerpiece, for lamps, for embedding in walls to make back-splashes or to augment bathroom shower tile or framing out a mirror. Parents and teachers also find novel uses for shells by painting and gluing them together to make small sculptures, nightlights or even Christmas tree ornaments. Really, there is no limit to what you can do with sea shells. I even heard of an artist who would take shells such as abolone and crush the pearlescent shells into powder to mix in and use in their paint!
Bottom line - you don't have to be an avid collector to find and use sea shells to your advantage and enjoyment!